Fenno's French Professor at Yale Remembers

Dear Fenno, I so admire you and recall my time with the YGC and its members very fondly. I cannot walk through Grand Central Terminal without thinking about incredible experiences with you as our beloved teacher. But you also had teachers. The story below comes from my father's cousin, Mrs. Annabeth Perls, who lives in Pacific Palisades. She is a pianist, a marvelous singer in her own right, and was your French teacher at Yale. She related this story to me by phone, and sends her best wishes to you and your family. Jim Lande '87

(Annabeth Perls, interviewed by phone) "Fenno was brilliant as a student. I was myself a graduate student at Yale. Here I was, not much older than my students. It was Fenno's freshmen class. I gave him the assignment and called on him and he trotted up with his fellow student and brought out a flute or something. They did their homework, see, not knowing I was a musician. They had translated their French homework into music, and turned the assignment into some versification, and they thought they were playing a joke on me. At this point the class had only had perhaps four weeks of French. I was enchanted! It was the very best thing anyone could have done. (Q. What were you doing at Yale?) I was a 1st or 2nd year graduate student working on my thesis. It would have been Fenno's freshman year. There were two women taking their master's in Romance Languages. Henri Peyer was the great teacher there in the department. But the person I really loved was Jean Boosch; he was still alive a few years ago when he turned 100, perhaps he is still living now. I was a graduate assistant under Professor Boosch. He had initiated the teaching system where you speak French from the first day. We did not use English. This was the first time anyone had used such a method in class. The students would have to learn their vocabulary and grammar at home and there was not much theory. This was the way to teach the military officers who were at Yale who were going to France and had to learn to speak French in three months. We drowned them in French. This worked well, so it went over into the general curriculum. I remember Fenno very well. He was very handsome, among other things. He was very talented. I think I had him in class for a year. His companion (in the flute episode) had a mono-syllabic Chinese-sounding name, although he wasn't Chinese, he was Caucasian. I could pick out his name if I saw a list. I arrived at Yale in the Fall of 1943, so the class with Fenno must have been in 1944 or 1945. (Q. So the assignment Fenno did was performed entirely in French?) Yes, en français. Absolument ! The funny thing, I don't think Fenno (and his classmate) had a clue that music was my passion. (Q. Did he get a good grade?) They got a good grade. They deserved it, they did great work! [Anne Perls can be e-mailed at aeperls@roadrunner.com Transcribed for Fenno's blog by Jim Lande, '87]